Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22465 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 420 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781592237845
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Customer Reviews

A Different Sort of Travel Guide: Fascinating Park Trivia
This latest Uncle John publication proclaims on its back cover "It's time to hit the Trail!" Hit the history books is more like it. This wonderful little volume is full of fascinating trivia about the national parks and monuments found in the US and Canada. Each chapter is brief enough to be read during a single trip to the throne room of your house, and for the most part the prose is enjoyable enough to keep you coming back. Favorite stories for me were "The Great Pig War" in which the US and England nearly managed to go to war over a dead pig (San Juan Island National Historic Park) and the Mojave National Preserve's "lonely phonebooth."

For the most part the history and folklore seemed accurate enough, though the authors did slip a little when they wrote that Ansel Adams had saved King's Canyon with pictures of its Giant Sequoia Grove. There is no such grove in King's Canyon proper. General Grant Grove is now administered as a part of King's Canyon National Park, but it has been protected since 1890. In any event, King's Canyon was preserved because it so closely resembled Yosemite. On the other hand, virtually every other element of the book is accurate. Indeed, this is one of the few sources I have ever read that correctly notes Hot Springs Arkansas is the oldest National Park, dating back to 1835, long before the Yosemite Grant or the creation of Yellowstone National Park.

So, by all means get this rather unusual travel guide. It probably won't help much with actual trip planning, but it is nice for whiling away the time between trips: especially that portion of the time when you are otherwise preoccupied.

Lighthearted but not always enlightening
If this book stimulates your interest in various National Parks, an interest that you haven't had before, great.

But Americans who have already enjoyed vacations to a number of our National Parks will recognize a number of minor errors in this book. Again, they're minor, but they're numerous enough to make the reader note that this is not a book written by someone who has a strong special interest in America's National Parks.

I'm not saying a bathroom book needs to be more in-depth, just that it can stand to be more accurate.

More of a serious facts rather than fun
The book was good and tells you good information. But it is not typical of a bathroom reader than is more fun facts.